


something's gotta give

by green_tea31



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: 3.14, Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 13:57:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17081588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_tea31/pseuds/green_tea31
Summary: Jack returns for the first time after leaving to hunt down Tiberius Kovac. Mac is doing worse than he lets on. Nothing really gets fixed but they work out their problems anyway.[Update: Slight adjustments have been made after 3.14 to fit into canon]





	something's gotta give

**Author's Note:**

> This is purposefully vague and might get edited or expanded after 3.14 has aired to fit into canon. Inspired by a photo Justin Hires posted on instagram where Jack is in uniform and which is probably from George Eads last episode. Let's just say my brain went "Nope" and leave it at that. Sending a character who is canonically already suffering from PTSD back to the military is either lazy writing or they're keeping the option of bringing him back if the show does badly after his exit. Given that my second favorite show Lethal Weapon suffered a thirty percent loss in ratings after the exit of one of the leads, that is entirely possible. If they turn Jack into the Joe White of MacGyver though I'm not sure I can stick with the show, but I'll continue writing because this fandom and the people in it are incredible and warmhearted and so very welcoming and I only really started falling in love with the show after I started reading fanfiction, so there's that. Also, I've been a Clint/Coulson shipper since 2011 so I'm used to living in a fandom AU. 
> 
> English isn't my first language. Self-betaed, all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title is kind of self-explanatory, also Jack says it somewhere in the story.

It’s Jack’s first leave since he left to hunt down Tiberius Kovac and he’s been eagerly awaiting it. Or dreading it. Depends on the day, really.

Part of it is Mac. Jack’s been getting regular updates from pretty much everyone because he’ll sleep better if he knows they’re (Mac) alright. Bozer sends him regular emails with photos attached, everything from post mission snapshots to team nights at Mac’s but, while Bozer might be Mac’s oldest friend, he’s also still the most susceptible to Mac’s _I’m fine_ routine because somewhere in Bozer’s head Mac is still the kid he grew up with and not the grown up experienced secret agent who is very good at deception when he wants to be.

Riley is, not so surprisingly considering that Jack has been pretty much grooming her for the part from day one, better at calling Mac on his shit. Her updates on Mac are sometimes just a quick _how do I keep from strangling him when he runs off on his own?_ and sometimes longer and much more in depth, but they always speak of the adoring sisterly fondness she’s developed for the kid and it makes Jack rest easier at night, knowing there are capable people watching Mac’s back.

He hasn't tried to get in contact with his replacement. Jack may have chosen her to watch out for the team but he wants her to find her place with them on her own. Interfering in that would help no one. (Though he's looking forward to see her interact with Mac. The kid hasn't said much about it so far but Jack really wasn't joking when he told Mac that he'd either like her or want to kill her).

Okay, he admits it. It’s mostly Mac. They’ve both made the effort to keep in regular contact whenever possible. Phone calls, video calls, veiled updates on missions and ops. They’ve even planned for a second attempt at a Vegas vacation sometime later this year, fingers crossed it ends better than the last one.

It’s just, lately there’s been something… _off_ about Mac.

He knows Mac is sleeping and eating regularly (Bozer). Mac is also no more or less reckless on missions than he’s been in the past (Riley) and the relationship with James MacGyver, while not exactly thriving, is at least civil enough not to worry Jack too much (Mac himself).

Still, their last phone call has left Jack with an uneasy feeling and so he’s as much anticipating meeting Mac at LAX than he’s dreading it at the same time.

…

“Jack, over here!” Jack turns around at his partner’s call (Mac will always be his partner, Jack might not be around much anymore to watch the kid’s back but you don’t just give up something like their partnership, Mac and Jack are for live) and spots him smiling in the crowd. Before Jack can let go of his bag, Mac has enveloped Jack in what feels like the biggest hug Jack’s ever gotten and he takes a moment just to enjoy the closeness and warmth and having the kid there again, in his space.

His heart skips a beat.

Whenever Jack thinks he’s gotten over his inappropriate attachment to his much younger friend, his old heart reminds him that it’s still capable of all this foolishness and has no intention of stopping.

Mac releases him from the embrace and Jack gets his first good look at him in months. He looks good, well-rested and well-fed. Jack has to think of something nice for the team for taking such good care of him and then scolds himself for the thought because it makes Mac sound like a dog.

Well…he does remarkably look like a golden retriever sometimes.

“You look good, kid”, Jack tells him and watches as Mac’s grin gets even brighter if possible.

“You don’t look too bad yourself, old man.” Mac shifts awkwardly, as if unsure what to do with his hands now that he doesn’t have Jack to hold on to anymore. Jack saves him the trouble and slings his arm around Mac’s shoulders as they make their way to the exit.

“Well, after all those hours in that tin can they called an airplane this old man is glad he can still walk outta this place on his own. Come on, tell me Bozer’s got somethin’ nice cooking for a weary traveller. I could kill for a nice, juicy steak right about now”, Jack says and feels Mac relax under his arm.

“The best he could find. I don’t think he’s stopped cooking since he started yesterday.”

“Now that’s what I like to hear. You brought the Jeep or the Shelby?” Jack asks and Mac chuckles.

“The Jeep. Riley hasn’t really let anyone near the Shelby since you handed her the keys. I do maintenance once a month and that’s it. She’s as protective over that car as you ever where.”

“That’s my girl”, Jack states proudly just as they reach Mac’s car. “It’s gonna have to be in top shape by the time we finally make it to Vegas. I don’t want a repeat of that time, when we tried taking it for a trip along the coast and spend the night at a gas station in the middle of nowhere while you were trying to fix it.”

Mac puts Jack’s bag in the back seat and deftly avoids Jack’s attempts at grabbing the keys. “Nope, you just spend how many hours on a plane again, Jack? You don’t get to drive anything in L.A. traffic until you’ve slept at least a full eight hours, in a bed”, Mac says, and determinedly pushes Jack towards the passenger side. Jack must be more tired than he thought because suddenly the thought of navigating the seven levels of hell that is L.A. traffic on a good day seems like an unsurmountable hill.

“Fine,” Jack doesn’t whine, really not. “You drive.” He relaxes into his seat as Mac pulls out of the parking space and into traffic. The sun warms his exhausted face where he’s resting against the window.

“You know what kid?” Jack asks and gets a slightly distracted “Hm?” in response.

“It’s good to be home.”

In his peripheral vision, Mac smiles.

…

Mac isn’t nervous.

Really, he isn’t. Jack is still asleep in the guest room. No new nightmares from what Mac could glean, and the thought of Jack having new nightmare material from missions where Mac wasn’t there to watch his back still makes his heart hurt in a very unpleasant way.

They’ve welcomed Jack with a classic team night. Bozer had started preparing several days ago, cooking enough for the entire neighbourhood and all of Jack’s favorites. Mac had found Bozer in the kitchen early on the day Jack was due in L.A., incoherently mumbling about metric vs. customary units and how to increase the thickness of gravy and Mac had wondered if this was what one of his infamously dubbed “science benders” (Jack) looked like from the other side.

Mac is still angry about how things went down and he wants nothing more than to keep Jack in L.A. where Mac can keep an eye on him. The Jack Dalton he met eight years ago was ready to say goodbye to the Army and, worst of all, Mac knows that, following the somewhat tumultuous few months after his discovery of oversight’s identity and Mac’s self-imposed exile to Nigeria, Jack had been _happy_ in L.A.

Happy with Mac and the team.

Things seemed to finally have settled down and then Jack had been forced to leave and Mac just…

He wants nothing more than to turn back the clock and find a way to keep Jack from having to leave. Mac normally wasn’t one to lament the unfairness of life but to loose Jack just as Mac had finally settled again?

That.. _hurt_. 

And Mac didn’t even have the option of trying to get his partner back the way Jack had done. There was so much red tape to cut through to even _talk_ to Jack these days, Mac simply didn’t have the connections to do anything more and he doubted Matty would be of any help. Jack had exiled himself so efficiently, Mac sometimes questioned if there wasn’t something else Jack wasn’t telling him. The man who, just a few months back, had put together a plan crazy enough to put some of Mac’s most famous moments to shame, so Mac would return to be his partner again, wasn’t the same man who had left Mac behind much easier than Mac had expected.

If he was honest, he’d been tempted to go back to Nigeria, go back to Nasha right after Jack had left. Mac’s time in Africa may have started as running away but he’d been _happy_ there.

Only the thought that Jack might need his help in the future had kept him rooted in the here and now. If Jack got himself into trouble and Mac was too far away to help him…

(Then there's the promise he made Jack. Mac is still kind of angry about that. Jack would have known that making that promise would chain Mac to L.A. and the Phoenix as surely as if Mac had done it himself. Mac only admits to that anger in his deepest, darkest moments though and only in the dark of the night.)

There’s a reason he returned for Jack after all. A reason he’s been carefully avoiding thinking about since he saw Jack at the airport. Mac had barely managed to let go of Jack again after their hug and he’s tempted now, to sit down next to his partner and just watch him sleep.

No matter how creepy that might be.

His co-dependency issues didn’t just stop because Jack wasn’t there anymore.

“What’s creepin’ around that noggin’ of yours?” Jack asks, coming out to the deck. He’s dressed in a pair of sweats, the morning is chilly, and nothing else and Mac takes a sip of the coffee he’s cradling between his hands to avert his eyes from Jack’s well-muscled and very naked chest.

Throwing himself into those arms is not going to make things easier.

“Just enjoying the sunrise”, Mac tells him and Jack sits down next to Mac, close enough that Mac can feel Jack’s warmth seeping through his own sleeping clothes, a threadbare M.I.T. shirt and boxers.

“In the corner of Mac’s eye Jack quirks an eyebrow at him, bemused, and blinks at the sun. “Sun’s been up for a while now. Come on, hoss. There’s something else eatin’ at you. I might be gone more often than not these day but I still know how to read you.”

Mac doesn’t manage to supress a flinch at the reminder of his partner’s status and Jack goes still in the way that Mac normally associates with Jack spotting his target through the scope of his rifle.

“Yeah, thought so.” Jack sighs heavily and grabs Mac’s coffee mug from where it’s threatening to slip from his suddenly weak hands. Without something to occupy his hands he feels strangely vulnerable and, as if he can read it in Mac’s thoughts, Jack turns to him and covers Mac’s hands with his own.

This…isn’t something they normally do. Jack will hug him and clap him on the back or sling an arm around Mac’s shoulders but this, taking Mac’s hands in his own like this, feels much more intimate than any contact they normally have.

It’s messing with Mac’s head.

“You know why I left right?” Jack asks, carefully and Mac swallows, trying to answer.

He finds that he _can’t_.

He knows, rationally why Jack had to leave but…

“Shit.” Jack looks troubled and worried and that isn’t right. Mac’s done everything possible over the last few months, to keep from worrying Jack. Jack needs to keep his head in the game so he doesn’t get himself killed, so he can come back to L.A., _back to Mac_. Mac was _okay_ with it, he really was.

Except, apparently he’s not as okay as he’s rationalized himself to be because right know Mac can just barely keep himself from crying, and if there’s anything Mac hates it’s showing weakness in front of other people.

Even Jack. _Especially Jack_.

“Hey, no. None of that.” Jack lets go of Mac’s hands and cradles his face instead, thumbs catching the tears that have gotten through Mac’s self-control without Mac’s permission. “Mac, come on. This isn’t worth cryin’ over. I’m here, I’m alive and we have four glorious days to spend doing absolutely fuckin’ nothing.”

Before Jack can say anything else and before Mac loses it and starts crying in earnest, he wraps himself around Jack in a hug that manages to skirt the edge between best friends, partners, and wildly inappropriate.

Jack catches him.

“Shut up”, Mac manages to mumble into Jack’s shoulder. “Just…shut up.”

…

Jack may have gotten in over his head.

Mac’s all but thrown himself into Jack’s arms, holding on for dear life. He’d suspected that something was up with his partner but he hadn’t expected this kind of emotional breakdown. Jack can count on one hand the times he’s seen Mac cry and still have fingers to spare. The kid hates showing weakness like this and Jack curses himself for not seeing it sooner.

The distance makes him rusty. Reading Mac through the grainy picture of a video call is a lot less reliable than reading him in real life because Jack sure as hell hadn’t seen this coming.

Jack needs to fix this. He can’t fix their situation, can’t just magically transfer himself back to L.A. and out of his current assignment but maybe, just maybe, he can fix this emotional mess they’re currently in.

And maybe Jack’s feelings aren’t as unrequited as he’d thought, because Mac gets this emotional about very few things. The last time Jack had seen Mac like this, the only time really, had been right after Nicky’s “death”. And if that doesn’t give Jack hope that Mac might be feeling more for Jack than he lets on, nothing will.

Mac’s also still clinging to Jack as if his life depends on it and Jack draws back from their embrace, reluctantly, trying to catch his partner’s eye.

“You know, I might be half a world away right now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be coming back to L.A. as often as I can.” Jack swallows, throat dry and draws up every inch of courage he can find. “It _does_ mean I’ll do everything possible to come back to you – as long as you want me to.”

It’s as obvious as Jack can make it without physically throwing himself at his partner and Mac goes deadly still, barely breathing. Jack can _feel_ the cogs turning in Mac’s head. It’s the same expression he gets when he has a particularly difficult problem to solve.

“I…” Mac is speechless and if Jack’s possible future happiness didn’t depend on this moment, he’d pat himself on the back for it but as it stands right now Jack is more terrified than anything else.

“Jack, you _can’t_ mean...that’s not.”

“Hey!” Jack says, too loud for the early morning. “When have I ever said something to you that wasn’t honest?” He stops Mac trying to interrupt him with a raised eyebrow. “When it _mattered_. If you don’t believe that, maybe you believe this – I love you”, he continues, “not in _as a brother_ because you and me we’ve long since crossed that line. You’re everything, Mac and I’m sorry that I’m only saying this now when there’s so much standing in the way but something’s gotta give, man. We can’t go on like this, circling around the issue like it’s on fire and we’re afraid to get burned.”

Mac swallows and looks up, his eyes shine in the morning light. He’s beautiful.

“You’re right, Jack.” There’s a smile creeping its way onto Mac’s face and Mac looks confused at the same time, like he doesn’t really know what to do with this new emotion.

“I love you, too. Should have told you that before.” He looks down, blushing and Jack isn’t having it. Gently, he cradles Mac’s face and presses his forehead to Mac’s, breathing in his partner’s distinct scent in the crisp morning air.

“Naw, we weren’t ready then.”

“You’re still leaving again in a few days…”, Mac begins but Jack interrupts him before that overactive brain can circle down into the abyss again.

“And two months from that I’ll be back for our weekend in Vegas, in June we’re due for a visit at the ranch and I’ll definitely be back for your birthday in August. It’s not perfect, it’s so far from perfect it might as well be on Mars but the important thing is, and you really gotta understand that Mac, I didn’t leave _you_ – I could never leave you, and I will always, _always_ come back to you as long as I still can and you’ll let me.”  

By now Mac looks almost giddy with happiness and Jack does pat himself on the back for being the cause of that and plans to repeat the experience as often as he can.

“Jack?” Mac asks, breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“You should probably kiss me now.”

And Jack does.

**Author's Note:**

> I might post a christmas ficlet over the weekend if I find the time to edit, if not, Happy Holidays to all of you.


End file.
